Category Archives: Policing – History

General posts on the history of policing, or in connection with specific historical operational policing events

Obituary: Bob Collins – Master Saddler & Leatherworker.

  By surreywebmaster | 15/06/2013 - 18:12 | Obituaries, Policing - History, Policing - Surrey, SPRCA
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The following obituary was written by former Surrey Constabulary Police Dog Inspector, Stan ‘Timber’ Wood.  Many years of a close working relationship together with the friendship enjoyed by Timber with Bob are self evident in the following words: -

Obituary in memory of Robert G. Collins

Bob Collins

Bob Collins

‘Bob’ Collins died peacefully in his sleep on Friday, 14th June at 3.15am at The Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, he had been suffering from cancer for several years. He was 88 years old.

Before talking about Bob, it occurs to me that readers may be interested in the small Saddlers and Leatherwork shop that had existed at 42 Recreation Road, Guildford, since around 1920.

This establishment was started by Bob’s father Jesse and the workshop was built before the house.  About 1920, Jesse had the house built and then showed it to his wife to be, when she approved, they married.  Two sons were born, Bob was the youngest, born I believe in 1925.

In the early days business was mainly horse tack and the making of coal sacks.

When Bob left school he went to work for his father until he was called up in the latter part of World War 2. As he had experience in horse harness etc he was put in The Royal Veterinary Corps.  He was demobbed in 1947 and returned to working with his father.

On the formation of the Surrey Constabulary Dog Section in 1947 and the transfer of Sergeant Harry Darbyshire from the Metropolitan Police to Surrey to establish the Section, equipment was a major problem.  Harry had some leads, tracking harnesses etc, made I believe in Germany but the problem was where he could get the same made in the UK.  He discovered on his doorstep Jesse Collins Esq. Saddlemaker.  It was from here that the making of police dog equipment started, and very soon handlers coming to the Dog School at Guildford were issued with their equipment made by Jesse and Bob Collins.

As the years rolled by more and more equipment was hand made in this workshop and many Police Forces from all over the UK dealt directly with the Collins Shop, the Surrey Constabulary being the main client.

Bob Collins & Tony SalterIn 1966, Jesse died aged 80 years, virtually working to the end. Young Bob then took over and the high standard work continued.  In the same year Kath, Bob’s wife gave birth to their only son Robin.  Both husband and wife worked in the shop and from the very beginning young Robin was to be found in his cot in the workshop.

Of course making equipment was one thing but there was breakage and wear and tear in use and dog handlers found it easy to just call and see Bob and a cheerful repair was done.

Bob had become well known in this work and many members of the public would call for all sorts of jobs, repairs and new dog equipment.  He was also used by The Surrey Force for any repairs etc that were required and for a long time all officers were issued with large leather wallets to hold documents, at times piles of these would appear for the odd stitch etc.

The Dog Section without a doubt was his ‘number one’ as was the Surrey Constabulary.  Everything stopped when Surrey needed something.

Bob with his GSD Pippa - 'In The Office'

Bob with his GSD Pippa – ‘In The Office’

Bob was also a dab hand at a bit or carpentry and he was responsible for building many dog obstacles for me. He purchased the wood and built the obstacle.  The Force paid for the wood but he refused point blank to charge for his hours.  The powers to be never knew of this sort of thing going on.  At one time in the 1980’s we decided to build a new training compound in the corner of the sports field.  Who was in charge of the erection and building of a new gate plus making the equipment therein?  I will leave you to guess but there was no charge, only for the material.

Another typical example of this man and his love for ‘The Force’ was around the time of the miners’ strike.  Supt. Peter Wickens, my boss at the time, called me into his office with a problem.  Some of the equipment issued to the men to go on the picket line was very inferior and Peter wanted something better and stronger.  I took the samples and went to see Bob.  It was a Good Friday and the gates were locked for the weekend.  Having scaled the gate I found Bob still busy in the workshop.  I showed him the problem and he immediately set about making new gear from hand stitched leather.  How many were made I cannot remember but on the Tuesday morning after Easter he appeared at Mount Browne with all the gear required.  He had worked all weekend to make sure his Surrey Men were equipped.  That was the man.

Bob was a lover of the Dog Section and during my ten years in charge he donated anonymously cash prizes for the first three handlers in the annual Surrey Police Dog Competition.  The conditions were that he would not present the prizes and nobody was to know where the prize money had come from.

This man was unbelievable, he wanted no fuss or attention and the only thing I argued with him about was the price he charged for the goods he made.  He was far too cheap for his own good both while I was in the Force and for nearly thirty years after I would nag my old friend to charge realistic fees.  He refused.

This man has served the Police Dog Section from its very beginning up until days before his death.  Over 65 years.  What a record!!

Bob continued to work a full day sometimes six days a week right to the end.

What a lovely, lovely man, he deserves all the plaudits that he gets.

Picture Gallery
Obituary: Bob Collins – Master Saddler & Leatherworker.
  • Chief Constable's Commendation - Guildford Cathedral. March 2009

    Chief Constable's Commendation - Guildford Cathedral. March 2009

  • Bob & PD Brittas

    Bob & PD Brittas

  • A proud Bob Collins with his certificate

    A proud Bob Collins with his certificate

On Wednesday 25th March 2009 at Guildford Cathedral, former Surrey Chief Constable, Mark Rowley, awarded Bob a Chief Constable’s Commendation for over 60 years of service to the Surrey Police.  That was the very least that he deserved.

A report of this award ceremony was carried in the Surrey Advertiser, (click this link), and the following is an extract from that report: -

‘Bob Collins, who has made leather equipment for police dogs at his workshop in Recreation Road since 1938, was also given a chief constable’s commendation.

“This is the only job I have ever had, it is a family trade. I still do 10 hours days, but it is a privilege to work for the police,” said Mr Collins.’

God Bless you Bob, you can put the needle down now.

The business has been officially in the hands of Bob’s son Robin for several years now, although you always knew that Bob was there.

See also - Bob Collins, Saddler & Leathermaker – Recreation Road, Guildford, Surrey.

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Still up to no good: Former gangland enforcer ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser hit with care home ASBO

  By surreywebmaster | 13/06/2013 - 10:25 | In The News, Policing - History
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'Mad' Frankie Fraser - ASBO and Bar

‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser – ASBO and Bar

He was the gangland enforcer whose name, uttered aloud, was enough to strike fear into the heart of London’s most hardened criminals.

And now in a sign that time has not withered “Mad” Frankie Fraser’s ability to cause trouble, the 89-year-old has been hit with a care home anti-social behaviour order (ASBO).

Fraser, who spent 42 years behind bars for 26 offences until 1989 and stole his first packet of cigarettes at 13, was issued the ASBO following an incident in his residential accommodation, according to one of his sons.

Fraser’s son David told a new documentary on the criminal that his father got in an argument with a fellow resident and centred on his unrepentant attitude to his life of crime at the London home and was subsequently issued with the ASBO.

Fraser is one of the last living “celebrity criminals” and was arguably the most feared person in the London criminal underworld of the 1960s that also featured the Kray twins and Richardson gang.

He earned the nickname “Mad Frankie” after he pretended to be mentally ill to avoid the World War II call-up and was classified as insane three times during his prison stints.

He was most famously jailed for 10 years in the “torture trial” of 1967 for “punishing” those who owed money or had angered his paymasters, Charlie and Eddie Richardson.

During the trial he was accused of pulling out his victims’ teeth with pliers. In the documentary, Fraser’s decision to join the Richardsons instead of the rival Krays was described as “like China getting the atom bomb”.

He emerged from jail in 1989 and has not been back since. “Maybe he was bored with going to prison,” Ronnie Richardson, Charlie’s widow, told the programme.

In 1991, while emerging from Turnmills nightclub in Clerkenwell, London, he was shot at by an unidentified gunman. According to David Fraser his father was unharmed but he did not inform on his assailant. “If you play by the sword, you’ve got to expect the sword as well,” he said.

Frankie Fraser’s Last Stand is broadcast on the Crime and Investigation Network on 16 June at 9pm

Still up to no good: Former gangland enforcer ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser hit with care home ASBO

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Former Assistant Commissioner Robert Hunt: Obituary

  By surreywebmaster | 10/06/2013 - 09:15 | Obituaries, Policing - History
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By - Murray Hunt

Robert Hunt

Robert Hunt’s first posting as a bobby on the beat was in Brixton

My father, Robert Hunt, who has died aged 77, was a working-class boy from an estate in Brixton, south London, who became assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police. Bob stood out not just for his accomplishments but also for his integrity and his popularity among the younger officers he mentored. He was appointed OBE in 1984 for drawing up the tactical options manual for the Association of Chief Police Officers after the Brixton riots of 1981.

He was never tempted to look further than London for promotion to chief constable because policing, he believed, was all about community. London was his community and his first posting as a bobby on the beat was in Brixton.

His mother, Minnie, had worked below stairs at Clandon Park in Surrey, where, when it was converted into a temporary military hospital during the first world war, she met Peter, a Scottish miner who was a short-term patient. They married and had five children.

By a stroke of fortune, Bob’s 11-plus examination coincided with the decision by the master of Dulwich College, Christopher Herman Gilkes, to take advantage of the Butler Education Act of 1944 and give admission to the sons of poor families, with their fees paid by London county council. Bob was admitted to Dulwich, kept his head well down in the early days but grew in confidence as he became known for his fast bowling.

During his national service in the Royal Artillery, he met a nursery school teacher, Jean, when he was delivering a nephew to the nursery. They married in 1956 and Bob decided to join the police force partly because it provided married quarters for young police officers.

From the beginning, based near the Herne Hill estate of his childhood, he believed in close communication between the public and the police. As he wrote in a prizewinning entry to the Queen’s police gold medal essay competition in 1972, “The public is the real police, with police forces as its specialist agents.” The essay caused the head of community relations, the future commissioner Kenneth Newman, to call on him to work in the new Scotland Yard unit on the pressing matter of police relations with the black community.

He rose quickly through the ranks, on the way taking in a University of London external law degree in 1970. By the mid-1970s he was a chief superintendent, covering the Balcombe Street and Madame Tussauds bomb emergencies in central London during the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign; the Grosvenor Square demonstrations against the Vietnam war; and the 1976 Notting Hill riots. He became head of the public order branch at Scotland Yard in 1977.

In 1986 he underwent a triple heart bypass operation but then returned to full duties as head of the Met force inspectorate from 1987 to 1990, at which point he became assistant commissioner, territorial operations, and was awarded the Queen’s police medal for distinguished service.

He is survived by Jean, three daughters, Gay, Sharon and Tracey, and me.

Former Assistant Commissioner Robert Hunt: Obituary

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Copper with a special talent

  By surreywebmaster | 10/06/2013 - 09:00 | Policing - General, Policing - History
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From the archive, 8 June 1973: Copper with a special talent

The trouble with being Britain’s first black policeman is that you are Britain’s first black policeman, and not just a policeman

archivenorwellroberts

Britain’s first black policeman PC Norwell Gumbs (Norwell Roberts) with some of his colleagues in 1967.

The trouble with being Britain’s first black policeman is that you are Britain’s first black policeman, and not just a policeman. Nobody could be more aware of that than Police Constable Norwell Roberts. It was not his fault that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Robert Mark, singled him out for special mention when Sir Robert delivered his report on Wednesday. Roberts said that he was very surprised and grateful that Sir Robert had named him, but he did not believe he deserved it any more than the 250 other policemen at Bow Street police station, London.

Roberts is more experienced than most constables in dealing with the press. When he joined the Metropolitan Police six years ago he was interviewed and photographed and filmed until he saw his own face more often in the newspapers and on film than he did in his own mirror. He found it so annoying to see his surname, Gumbs, frequently spelt wrongly, that he changed it to Roberts, his mother’s maiden name. After that fuss was over, he thought he could get on with being a policeman. That was until Sir Robert decided to say that he had done more than anybody to improve relations between the white community and coloured immigrants.

So once again everybody wanted to interview him. Roberts had been on duty since 4am but he looked fresh and in control when he met the press at midday. He was sitting in a dentist’s chair, he said, when he heard about Sir Robert’s accolade. The nurse had brought in a copy of the evening paper and said: “This’ll take your mind off the pain.” It did, said Roberts. Although Roberts has been cast as a community relations worker, he prefers to see himself as just another policeman. “I would just like to be a policeman who goes around his beat. I know it’s impossible but that’s what I want.” When he first started, after giving up a job as a laboratory assistant to join the force, he did meet some opposition from both black and white people. But it did not bother him.

Some black people had said to him, “Man, why are you a policeman?” And he had told them it was because he liked the life and he liked meeting people. They accused him of going over to the other side and of being an Uncle Tom. You were bound to get that. He is convinced that there ought to be more black policemen. In a multi-racial society, he said, you needed policemen of all races. In fact, London now has eight West Indian policemen, as well as an Asian, a Cypriot, and a Nigerian.

Mr Roberts admitted that he had once indirectly done his own bit of recruiting when a black bus driver asked him what life was like in the police. Mr Roberts told him, and later the bus driver joined up.

[Later research revealed the first serving black police officer in the UK was PC John Kent, who served in Carlisle in the 19th century.]

(Has Robin been writing to the Guardian I ask myself but no it was, Robin Smith Chairman, Historical Association, Cumbria branch…)

These archive extracts, compiled by the Guardian’s research and information department, appear online daily at gu.com/fromthearchive

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Hillsborough police officers question government report on the disaster

  By surreywebmaster | 06/06/2013 - 20:26 | In The News, Policing - General, Policing - History
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Three senior police officers on duty during the Hillsborough disaster have said ‘We do not regard the report as independent’

Hillsborough police officers question government report on the disasterThe report, published in September, led to an apology by David Cameron for ‘indefensible’ conduct over Hillsborough by South Yorkshire police.

The three surviving most senior police officers who were on duty at the Hillsborough football ground when 96 Liverpool supporters died have questioned the independence of the government-appointed panel’s landmark report into the disaster.

The report published in September, led to an apology by David Cameron for “indefensible” conduct over Hillsborough by South Yorkshire police and to the 1991 inquest verdict of accidental death being quashed in December. The criticism was made by John Beggs QC, acting for the Police Superintendents’ Association, at a court hearing of preliminary issues for the new inquest, which the coroner, Lord Justice Goldring, ruled will begin on 31 March next year.

Representing chief superintendent David Duckenfield, who was in command at Hillsborough for the 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, and superintendents Roger Greenwood and Roger Marshall, in charge respectively inside and outside the ground, Beggs said: “We do not regard the report as independent.”

He referred to the report’s introductory section in which the Hillsborough Independent Panel said it was “guided in its work by its regular consultation with, and the priorities of, Hillsborough families and their representatives.”

Beggs said: “The terms of reference made sure the report was not independent because it was guided by the families. It had an agenda which was responsible to and guided by the families, and not my clients.”

The bishop of Liverpool, who chaired the panel, and the Home Office, which principally set it up, declined to comment. Charles Falconer QC, the former lord chancellor who is acting for the Hillsborough Family Support Group, said the remarks “wilfully misunderstood” the panel’s work, to address bereaved families’ longstanding concerns that the previous inquest and inquiries had been inadequate.

Trevor Hicks, HFSG president, whose two daughters died at Hillsborough, said the criticism was “appalling” and said. “The panel was independent, its report was accepted by everybody including the prime minister,” Hicks said. “These police officers need to accept it.”

The court heard families’ concerns about the pace and conduct of the new investigation into the disaster, headed by Jon Stoddart, former chief constable of Durham police. Several of Stoddart’s officers arrived unannounced at families’ homes recently, said Michael Mansfield QC, for the HFSG: “People were doorstepped in a way which made them feel they were the ones being investigated,” Mansfield said.

There have been delays recruiting 70 investigators in addition to Stoddart’s current 70-member team, and families were dismayed by recruitment adverts carried by G4S, the firm associated with Olympic security disorganisation.

Stoddart said his officers approached the families “in good faith,” but had learned lessons about the sensitivities of doing so.

Goldring set the firm inquest date “for the focussing of minds,” saying 31 March 2014 balances the work required with families’ desires for the inquest to be soon.

The inquest will be before a jury, mandatory where there is a question that police may have caused the deaths. The venue, in the northwest, is yet to be determined.

Hillsborough police officers question government report on the disaster

See – Unbroadcast film shows Hillsborough police witness was right

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Broadwater Farm riots: prosecutors consider new charges over killing of Pc Blakelock

  By surreywebmaster | 06/06/2013 - 16:35 | In The News, Policing - General, Policing - History
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Prosecutors are deciding whether to bring new murder charges over the killing of Pc Keith Blakelock during the Broadwater Farm riots nearly 28 years ago, it has emerged.

Broadwater Farm riots: prosecutors consider new charges over killing of Pc BlakelockWinston Silcott (Rt) , Mark Braithwaite and Engin Raghip were convicted in March 1987 of Pc Blakelock’s murder but all three convictions were quashed four and a half years later

Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, of the Metropolitan Police, confirmed a file has been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service over one of Britain’s most notorious unsolved murders.

Lawyers will now decide whether there is a realistic prospect of conviction based on an “enormous” amount of evidence gathered by detectives, said Mr Rowley.

The Telegraph reported last year that Scotland Yard was poised to bring new charges against a man who was under 18 at the time of the riots on the estate in
Tottenham, north London.

If prosecutors give the go ahead it will be the first time the man has faced charges in connection with the crime.

“The Blakelock case is with the CPS for consideration,” said Mr Rowley.

“It’s an enormous amount of material.”

Pc Blakelock, 40, was attacked as he tried to protect firefighters who were tackling a supermarket blaze at the height of the riot on October 6, 1985. After stumbling, the father of three was surrounded by a mob screaming “Kill the pig”.

He was stabbed dozens of times and the machete-wielding killers then tried to decapitate him. A later trial heard the mob intended to parade the constable’s head on a pole to taunt other officers.

He was dragged off by colleagues who bravely returned to help him, a 6in kitchen knife still embedded to the hilt in his neck. He died later at North Middle­sex Hospital.

Winston Silcott, Mark Braithwaite and Engin Raghip were convicted in March 1987 of Pc Blakelock’s murder but all three convictions were quashed four and a half years later, after forensic tests on pages of key interview records suggested they had been fabricated.

None of the three men originally convicted is the suspect in the new case.
Scotland Yard reopened the murder investigation in 2003 after a review indicated there were possible new lines of inquiry.

It was revealed on the 25th anniversary of his murder, in October 2010, that 10 men had been arrested in London and Suffolk for questioning over the crime.

All were aged in their 40s or 50s and had lived in the Tottenham area at the time of the riot.

New forensic tests were carried out on Pc Blakelock’s flame-retardant overalls, which for years had been on show to criminologists and trainee police officers at Scotland Yard’s “Black Museum”.

The garment and more than a dozen murder weapons – including several machetes – were analysed using updated DNA techniques for the first time.
Evidence is also believed to include new witness statements.

The Telegraph understands that in the latest stage of the investigation, Scotland Yard obtained legal opinions from two QCs which indicated that a prosecution could theoretically secure a conviction.

Pc Blakelock’s widow Elizabeth said at the time of the October 2010 arrests: “I desperately hope this leads to something. It will bring the closure that we have never been able to get.

“There’s never, ever been a day goes past when I do not think of Keith and this has been hanging over us every day for the past 25 years.”
The Telegraph knows the identity of the suspect but has decided not to disclose further details for legal and police operational reasons.

Broadwater Farm riots: prosecutors consider new charges over killing of Pc Blakelock

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Unbroadcast film shows Hillsborough police witness was right

  By surreywebmaster | 20/05/2013 - 14:47 | In The News, Policing - History
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The Panorama programme uses never before broadcast footage of the Hillsborough disaster (Video here)

Crucial evidence from the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster, which was undermined at the original inquest, was true, BBC Panorama has found.

An off-duty police officer has always maintained he tried to treat a dying boy after the time at which the coroner said no-one could have survived.

His account cast doubt on medical evidence that supporters could not have survived beyond 15:15 on that day.

Panorama’s analysis of unbroadcast TV footage shows his account was true.

Ninety-six football fans died after they were crushed to death on 15 April 1989 during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium.

The inquest at the time resulted in verdicts of accidental death but, in December last year, the High Court quashed those verdicts and ordered fresh inquests to take place early next year.

The TV footage seen by Panorama calls into question the response of the emergency services on the day.

The Hillsborough Independent Panel’s report into the disaster – published last year – analysed the medical evidence.

It found that given proper treatment, more than half of the 96 fans who died, including the 15-year-old boy, Kevin Williams, might have had a chance of survival.

Overcrowded terraces

Off-duty Merseyside police constable Derek Bruder, who tried to resuscitate Kevin, was one of those whose evidence was undermined at the inquest.

The Hillsborough disaster was recorded by seven BBC Sport cameras, and a BBC news team, while the police had CCTV and a mobile camera unit.

As a life-long Liverpool fan, I was there that day and reported on it for the BBC News that night.

Kevin Williams Kevin Williams was 15 when he died

The BBC footage was later released to the police and the families’ lawyers but it was then locked away as it was considered too distressing for broadcast.

Some 24 years on, Panorama has been able to analyse it.

It shows how things went wrong from the start at Hillsborough and continued going wrong for longer than has ever been admitted.

At 15:06, the football match was stopped as Liverpool fans escaping the overcrowded terraces ran onto the pitch.

At 15:28, Kevin Williams was pulled out of gate three and laid on the pitch. Soon after, he was carried across it. A fan who tried to help him believes he was still alive.

Kiss of life

Steve Hart said: “I remember shouting to everyone to pick him up and get down there with him, you know, you’re looking at people everywhere and you’re thinking, obviously my instinct was this lad needs help.”

PC Bruder was photographed kneeling on the ground giving Kevin the kiss of life, but he was not sure at what time the photograph was taken. PC Bruder told Kevin’s mother, Anne, how he had tried to help her son.

“He told me then what he’d done for Kevin and I said ‘Was my son alive?’ and he said ‘Well, if you say finding a pulse with the first two fingers… if that means he was alive, then he was alive’,” she said in one of her last interviews before she died last month.

But the coroner at the original inquest ruled that all those who died that day had been beyond help by 15:15.

Doreen Jones: “I wanted to touch my son, I wanted to hold him”

This decision meant the response of the emergency services was never properly investigated.

A fleet of ambulances was parked outside the football ground, but crews and emergency equipment were not sent inside.

Tony Edwards, who was on board one of the few ambulances that entered the ground, said: “I always think in terms of a rail accident. Could you imagine the public outcry if all ambulance crews remained on an embankment simply because they couldn’t get the ambulance down to the scene of the accident?

“That doesn’t happen. They get out of their vehicles and if that’s the length of a football pitch, they have to go, they make their way there.”

Ambulances on pitch

PC Bruder said an ambulance was arriving and driving past as he treated Kevin, but he was not called to give evidence at the inquest.

Instead his evidence was outlined to the coroner by a West Midlands police officer. He mentioned only two ambulances going onto the pitch, both before Kevin was carried to the end where PC Bruder tried to save him. As a result, PC Bruder’s evidence was considered unreliable.

But the footage analysed by Panorama shows that a third ambulance turned up after 15:30.

Mr Edwards was the ambulance man in the third vehicle and said the West Midlands Police officers investigating the disaster knew this before PC Bruder’s evidence was undermined at the inquest.

“They had a video set up, they had photographs and they had laid out photographs as well and it was them who said to me, ‘I want to show you your vehicle coming on the pitch at 3:35′,” he said.

The footage also shows the moment PC Bruder goes to help Kevin. It is after 15:30 and proves he had been right all along.

PC Bruder has told Panorama he has now made a complaint to the Independent Police Complaints Commission about how his evidence was handled.

West Midlands Police said it would co-operate with the IPCC and could not comment while inquiries continued.

Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust said it would co-operate with any new legal inquiries.

Watch the Panorama Special – Hillsborough: How They Buried The Truth on BBC One at 21:00 BST on Monday, 20 May.

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Fifty years on, Timber Wood catches up with Bob Ling

  By surreywebmaster | 11/05/2013 - 18:02 | Policing - History
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'Timber' Wood MBE & pup in handTimber Woods writes:

I decided that I must try and get to see Bob Ling as I have had a document for ages that I wanted him to sign.

Former Surrey Chief Constable, Sir Peter Matthews with Mountbrone Doron

Former Surrey Chief Constable, Sir Peter Matthews, with Mountbrowne Doron.

On the 21st September 1963, (fifty years ago), I competed for the first time in Kennel Club Dog Trials with my young 15 month old police dog, Mountbrowne Doron in the CD, (Companion Dog), and UD, (Utility Dog) stakes. Bob was judging the CD stake and an old friend of Bob’s, a Sergeant from Essex called Dan Hare, was judging the UD stake.

Having qualified in both competitions at the prize giving I was awarded my certificates, Dan had signed his certificate for me but for some reason Bob forgot to sign his certificate for me.  I came 4th in CD but  because Bob had forgotten to sign the certificate I thought it might ‘tickle’ him to sign it 50 years late!

Now 86 years young, Bob joined the RAF at seventeen and a half and had just completed his training in Bomber Command when the war ended so never flew ‘in anger’ unlike Sir Peter Matthews who did see action in Bomber Command during World War Two.

Bob has been poorly but I managed to get over to see him on the 9th May and found him in good spirits.  Almost 50 years late I produced the documents for him to sign.  The following is a photo of the event.

Bob Ling with Stan Wood overseeing the signing of the historic certificates

Bob Ling with Stan Wood overseeing the signing of the historic certificates

Bob Ling - 1950’s with his Doberman bitch, Mountbrowne Karin. She was the first ever Doberman Bitch to be made a Working Trials Champion.

Bob Ling – 1950’s with his Doberman bitch, Mountbrowne Karin. She was the first ever Doberman Bitch to be made a Working Trials Champion.

Stan Wood remembers -  Bob Ling 1959 to 1966

On Harry Darbyshire’s retirement in 1959, Bob Ling was promoted to Sergeant in charge of the Dog Section. Among the handlers at the time were Bill Redwood, Fred Booker, George Wraight, Len Truss, Geoff Bloomfield, Peter Morley, Bob Twentyman and Jock Duff.  There was also an Alan Osment, who at sometime in the early 60’s was promoted to Sergeant, for normal section duties at Buckland but kept his police dog.  Alan retired in the middle 60’s, a keen Labrador man he went to live in Four Marks and to my knowledge nothing more was heard of him.

Elementary and Advanced courses continued to be the only courses on offer and these were run by Bob Ling and his assistant GeorgeWraight.

The Dog Section in 1962 had the following handlers:

P.S. Bob Ling (Section and Training)
P.S. Alan Osment (Buckland Section Sgt and dog handler)
P.C. George Wraight (HQ and Assistant Trainer)
P.C. Bill Redwood Farnham.
P.C. Fred Booker Godalming.
P.C. Peter Morley Guildford
P.C’s Chris Proctor and Geoff Bloomfield Woking
P.C’s Roy Cartwright and Jock Duff Weybridge
P.C. Len Truss Reigate
P.C. Ken Curnow Dorking

In 1965 Bob Ling undertook a secondment for one year to the then named British Guiana. George Wraight took over training as Acting Sergeant. This continued up to August 1966 when George transferred to Thames Valley. This was a huge loss to the section as George Wraight was a top class instructor.

In the meantime Bob Ling had returned to the UK but did not return to Surrey as he had resigned and went into private dog breeding and training. This was another great loss as now two instructors who had trained under Harry Darbyshire had left the Force.

From Fred Booker’s memoirs –

Following Darby’s departure Sgt. Ling took charge of all training and he became our first member to take his place on the Training Sub Committee of the Home Office Standing Advisory Committee on Police Dogs when it was formed. He sat with similar chief training officers from other police forces that had training schools and methods used began to standardise and improve. One of the many subjects that came up during his time on the committee was hard surface tracking.

The Met. representative had said that their dogs could do it but others had replied that it was only occasionally possible. Sgt. Ling’s suggestion was, “show us”. They did and the dog failed to convince the spectators. I was told that the track was laid on a street scene and the dog seemed to be following wind born scent that was bouncing between buildings. His nose was not down.

Soon afterwards, one training day, we had a go. We needed a wide area of concrete or tarmac, away from grass: the tracklayer was to scuff with his feet a little and the dog was set to work almost immediately. Once the dog realised that there was something to follow and it led to a prize we began to succeed. The handler who perfected it in Surrey was Sgt. Yeourt. His dog worked slowly and methodically. The distance that he could follow the trail with the concentration necessary before his nose lost it was the only problem; about 50 yards. Weather conditions could change everything and we concentrated on short distances up to 30 minutes old at that time. In this way we began to improve our training and methods.

pawswalking

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Hillsborough disaster police officers to refuse to give evidence to inquest

  By surreywebmaster | 26/04/2013 - 08:55 | Courts, In The News, Policing - History
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Lawyers say officers will exercise right not to answer questions to avoid incriminating themselves in criminal proceedings

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Hillsborough_Memorial.jpg/640px-Hillsborough_Memorial.jpg

Police officers on duty at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough football ground when 96 Liverpool supporters died in 1989 will refuse to give evidence to the new inquest into the disaster, their barristers have said at a pre-inquest hearing.

Lawyers for the three most senior surviving officers in command that day, and the Police Federation representing lower-ranked officers, said the inquest should be delayed for years until any possible criminal proceedings have been concluded. If held before that, said Paul Greaney QC, for the Police Federation, officers under investigation for possible criminal misconduct would exercise their right not to answer questions, to avoid the risk of incriminating themselves.

“Many of those witnesses will be under investigation for possible offences, including homicide, and there is potential for them to be prosecuted,” he said to the coroner, Lord Justice Goldring. “It is likely there will be an increased incidence of witnesses refusing to give evidence by invoking the privilege against self-incrimination.”

From the rows of bereaved Hillsborough family members in the large courtroom on High Holborn in London, there were audible gasps, and one said, quite loudly: “Outrageous.”

John Beggs QC, representing Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, who was in command at Hillsborough, and the senior officers inside and outside the ground, Superintendents Roger Greenwood and Roger Marshall, supported Greaney’s call for the inquest to be delayed.

Goldring refused, however, and ruled that the new inquest should start in early 2014. He said that waiting for the criminal investigation, which was being led by former Durham chief constable Jon Stoddart, and then any prosecutions and appeals, could amount to a six-year delay.

In his opening remarks, Goldring expressed sympathy for the families’ anguish and grief, and emphasised the need for the inquest to be held quickly, given that 24 years have already elapsed since the disaster. The original inquest with its verdict of accidental death was quashed in December after a long campaign against it by the families of the victims.

“I bear in mind that over that course of time some of the bereaved have died, most recently, of course, Anne Williams,” Goldring said. Williams, 62, who lost her 15-year-old son Kevin at Hillsborough, died last week. “Her death is a powerful reminder, if one were needed, that there is an urgency attaching to the commencement of the inquest hearings.”

Michael Mansfield QC, representing some of the families of the victims, pressed Goldring to appoint his own staff to handle the evidence for the inquest, saying the families had no faith in the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is gathering the evidence on police conduct during and after the disaster, and with whom Stoddart is working closely. Goldring said he would consider that request.

Goldring will decide next week the location for the new inquest, after the family groups disagreed about where they would prefer. Mansfield, representing the largest group, 71 families who are HFSG members, said their overwhelming majority view was for the inquest to be held in London. The principal reason, he said, was that London would be perceived as neutral in the bitterly contested history of Hillsborough, and there would be no possibility of “actual or perceived bias”.

However Pete Weatherby QC, representing 20 families, and lawyers for two other families, argued London was too far for mostly Liverpool-based family members to attend in full, and somewhere neutral in the north, such as Preston, should host it.

Hillsborough disaster police officers to refuse to give evidence to inquest

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Surrey police contact with News of the World over Milly Dowler – timeline

  By surreywebmaster | 24/04/2013 - 21:39 | In The News, Policing - History, Policing - Surrey
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Reporters from tabloid repeatedly contacted the force saying it had information about missing teenager gleaned from voicemail

Milly Dowler

Surrey police were in contact with staff from the News of the World during the Milly Dowler investigation.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission on Wednesday issued a highly critical report on Surrey police’s failure to investigate the alleged hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone by the News of the World in 2002.

The revelation of the hacking of the murdered teenager’s phone by the News of the World led to revulsion that triggered the tabloid’s closure. The IPCC found that there was knowledge of the alleged hacking “at all levels” of the Surrey police team investigating the case, and that its head, Craig Denholm, even received documents mentioning it. But nothing was done for almost a decade, even after the 2007 conviction of a journalist from the paper for hacking the royal family and a private investigator for carrying it out.

But the IPCC said they could not find evidence to disprove the assertion by Denholm, now deputy chief constable of Surrey, that he did not know and did not make the “relevant connections”.

This timeline of Surrey police’s officially documented contacts with News of the World journalists during their investigation into Dowler’s disappearance in March and April 2002 is drawn from information passed by the force to the Commons culture, media and sport select committee in January 2012.

Dowler went missing on 21 March 2002 and her body was discovered in September that year. Levi Bellfield was found guilty of abducting and murdering the 13-year-old schoolgirl in June 2011.

26 March 2002

Surrey police downloads one message from Dowler’s voicemail – details of this were passed to the Leveson inquiry.

Saturday 13 April 2002

12.10pm: The co-owner of a recruitment agency phoned Surrey police to say: “We have a News of the World reporter, [name redacted] harassing us today.” The caller went on to say that the reporter was saying the agency had recruited Dowler as an employee and was, “demanding to know what we know and saying he is working in full co-operation with the police”. In its letter to the culture committee, Surrey police said: “It should be noted that the NoW reporter’s assertion that he was working with the police was untrue.”

12.15pm: Surrey police’s press officer called someone at the NoW (name redacted), who said he was not aware of any developments in the Dowler investigation in the area where the recruitment agency was located.

4.40pm: An individual from the NoW (name redacted) called the Surrey police press officer saying they wanted to speak to a senior officer working on the Dowler case.

5.20pm: After calling back several times but finding the number engaged, a Surrey police officer finally got through to the NoW journalist, who told him about what the paper thought was an approach for work to the recruitment agency by a woman purporting to be Milly Dowler on 27 March, based on a voicemail message.

The journalist said the NoW “was in possession of a recording of the voicemail” and had confirmed with Dowler’s school friends “that this was her mobile phone number”.

After consulting the press officer, the Surrey officer told the NoW journalist the investigation had been “dogged by a professional hoaxer purporting to be Milly”.

Later on 13 April: The same police officer received a call from an NoW journalist (name redacted) saying the paper was confident of its sources and was intending to print the information it had relayed to Surrey police as a story the following day (Sunday 14 April).

An NoW journalist also recounted a message from Dowler’s voicemail on 27 March 2002: “Hello Mandy. This is [redacted] from [redacted] recruitment agency. We are ringing because we are starting interviewing today at [redacted]. Call back on [redacted]. Thanks, bye bye.”

The officer was also told by someone from the NoW that there were other voicemail messages from a tearful relative, a young boy and someone saying “It’s America, take it or leave it”; and that an undercover reporter purporting to be a friend of Dowler had spoken to someone at the recruitment agency, who had confirmed that “Amanda Dowler” was registered with them but declined to confirm whether she had received any employment offer. In its letter to the culture committee, Surrey police said there is “no evidence that the recruitment agency confirmed that ‘Amanda Dowler’ was on the agency’s books, the contrary is the case”.

The Surrey police officer reiterated his view that the NoW was being subjected to a hoax, but agreed to provide an official response within the hour.

Later on 13 April: The Surrey police press officer spoke to an NoW journalist (name redacted) and asked him why he was so convinced that the message on Dowler’s voicemail was not a hoax. They replied that the paper “had got Milly’s mobile phone number and pin from schoolchildren”; said they had taped messages from her phone; and repeated almost word for word the 27 March message about the recruitment agency and interviews.

The NoW journalist added that they had spoken to a member of the recruitment agency’s staff on 12 April who had confirmed that a “Mandy D” had registered with the agency but could not confirm whether they had got a job as it would contravene data protection – and said the paper had five reporters working on the story.

7.30pm: The Surrey police press officer spoke again to an unnamed NoW journalist who said the paper had two versions of the recruitment agency voicemail message article ready to go for the following day, one saying police were treating it as a hoax and another that they were treating it as a new line of inquiry. The press officer said she would need time to provide an official response.

8.10pm: An NoW journalist (name redacted) called the Surrey police press officer again and said the paper was going to run a story the following day with the following quote from the force: “We are intrigued, but believe the message may have been left by a deranged woman hoaxer thought to have hampered other police inquiries.” The press officer said this wording was too strong and asked for a couple of minutes to provide an alternative, but was told it was too late for first edition.

After agreeing it with a police officer, the press officer called the NoW journalist back with the line: “We are evaluating the claim that Amanda may have registered with a recruitment agency. At this stage there is the possibility that a hoaxer may be involved in generating this story.”

She was told it would be used in all five NoW editions except the first, circulated in the north of the UK.

Sunday 14 April

In the morning, the senior investigating officer of Surrey police’s Dowler investigation, Operation Ruby, approved the following line for media inquiries about the NoW story: “We are evaluating a claim by the News of the World that Amanda may have registered with a recruitment agency. At this stage there is a possibility that a hoaxer may be involved in generating the story.”

The following off-the-record guidance was also approved: “At this stage we are confident that this woman attending the recruitment agency is a hoaxer and not Milly. This woman is older than Milly and hence would be able to register at a recruitment agency (would question how a 13-year-old would be able to register for a job).”

Monday 15 April

West Mercia police, which covers Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, contacted Surrey police with result of investigations they had been asked to undertake with the recruitment agency. A member of the agency’s staff stated that they had no one called Amanda Dowler (or anyone with the name of hoaxer) on their books. Nor had she ever, to her knowledge, spoken to a reporter from the NoW.

Wednesday 17 April

Surrey police performed a second download of voicemail messages from Milly’s mobile phone, one of which was the 27 March message played to an officer and the press officer by an NoW journalist over the phone on 13 April.

Thursday 18 April

The Surrey police press officer was talking to an NoW journalist (name redacted) about another matter in relation to the Dowler investigation and stated she would get back to him to clarify the situation regarding the “hoax woman”. The journalist said he was “convinced that Milly had run away to the north of England and was seeking a job there”.

Friday 19 April

A Surrey police officer listened to the 27 March voicemail message from Dowler’s voicemail and formed the view that the name of the person for whom the message was being left sounded like “Nana” rather than “Mandy”. The officer called the agency and was told that they had a lot of ladies from Ghana on their books and Nana was a popular Ghanaian name.

Later, someone from the agency called the police officer and told her that a Ghanaian lady called Nana, who had registered with them approximately 12 months previously, had called on 26 March to give them her new mobile number. This mobile number was recorded in the agency’s files as the same as Milly’s number. There was an entry on Nana’s file stating that the agency had contacted her on 27 March and left a message on her mobile voicemail about job interviews. The recruitment agency member of staff did not know if the phone number was written down incorrectly or whether Nana had given the wrong number.

In its letter to the select committee, Surrey police stated: “Contrary to Surrey police’s initial suspicions, the message left on Milly’s mobile phone voicemail on 27 March 2002 by the recruitment agency was not the work of a hoaxer but a pure coincidence. It was in any event of no evidential value in the investigation into Milly’s disappearance.”

Saturday 20 April

9.46am: An NoW journalist (name redacted) emailed the Surrey police press officer, recounting what the paper had done with its Dowler story the previous weekend and asking for clarification and further information about a number of matters as “a matter of urgency”.

3.15pm: The Surrey police press officer called the NoW journalist back and gave him the official line about the “hoaxer”: “Surrey police, Crimewatch, Missing Persons Helpline and other police forces have received calls for [sic] a hoaxer pretending to be Amanda. These calls are not helpful to the investigation of missing schoolgirl Amanda Dowler. We are liaising with other police forces to consider what action to take.”

Using a prepared script approved by a police officer, the press officer also gave the NoW journalist guidance about the recruitment agency voicemail story: “We believe the agency incorrectly wrote down the mobile phone number of Amanda’s, or the woman seeking employment accidently gave her mobile number as that of Amanda’s. We have listened to a recording of [the] message and it does not actually say ‘Mandy’. We do not believe that the hoax woman was involved in this incident. No one has enrolled with the agency using the name Amanda Dowler.”

The NoW journalist responded by saying that what the press officer was telling him was “not true and inconceivable”. They referred to other messages on Milly’s phone – “It is America, take it or leave it” – said the paper was moving its investigation to the north of England, and that Dowler had been there and had applied for a job in a factory. He said the NoW “know this 110%. We are absolutely certain”, but was not going to run it as a story.

Surrey police contact with News of the World over Milly Dowler – timeline

See also: Surrey police had ‘collective amnesia’ over Milly Dowler phone hacking

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The Harsh Winter of 1963

  By surreywebmaster | 09/04/2013 - 19:56 | Policing - History, Policing - Surrey
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The Editor of the Old & Bold Newsletter asked in the last edition if any members had any reminiscences about the harsh winter experienced in the UK during the winter of 1963/4. 

Former Inspector in charge of the Dog Section, Stan ‘Timber’ Wood MBE sent in the following: -

'Timber' Wood MBE with a Mountbrowne bred Puppy

‘Timber’ Wood MBE with a Mountbrowne bred Puppy

My first memory of this hard winter was Boxing Night, 1962. I had just gone to the gate of our Police House in Farncombe to see my parents off after a day visit.  They were going back to their home near Haywards Heath, Sussex.  The snow had been falling all evening and the ground was well covered.

Next morning they were in contact as my Mum had lost her spectacles, she thought, near to where the car had been parked whilst on their visit.  I had a good check in the thick carpet of snow but to no avail.

In the New Year I took up a new job on the Dog Section, I was to join the Dog Training Staff at Mount Browne as ‘the boy’.  My job other than Kennel Duties was to be second assistant helping to run the police dog courses.  My boss was Sergeant Bob Ling, his assistant was Constable George Wraight.  They were without doubt two of the very best dog trainers in the country and I was extremely lucky to spend the next two years under their guidance.

1963 was the start of trained dogs and handlers returning to their Dog School for two week Refresher Courses and we had handlers attending from all over the country including Wales and Scotland.  The ‘lads’ from Hull would come by train  and when we picked them up from the station they would not only have their dog but a very welcome box of fresh fish.  This was also the first year of the competitive Regional Dog Trails and National Finals.

However, back to The Winter, 1963.  The snow laid on the ground until late March and each day I rode my bike from Farncombe to Mount Browne normally with my young police dog trotting by my side.

Work for the first hour was sweeping with the aid of the dog course and then dog food preparation.  When all this was completed I was to join the Course normally on the Sports Field where I was expected to run ‘criminal for up to two hours for the eight dog course.  We usually did at least two evenings searching local factories for a hidden criminal.

You guessed who ‘he’ would be, it was freezing cold particularly if I was hidden on a roof for up to two hours.

As the snow began to melt that March, I found my mother’s spectacles laying in the gutter outside of the house, they were intact.  By the by she celebrated her 105th birthday this April 1st.  real not April Fool!!.

The snow had gone by the time Surrey ran the first No 6 District Regional Dog Trial, the manwork was the last day attraction when all 28 dogs had ‘their turn’.  A young Fred Booker and myself were given to task of running criminal for them all.  That was Fred acting as criminal for 28 attacks against the stick and then the gun and yours truly running 28 chase to stops and 28 ‘so called’ standoffs.  I am not kidding.

1964 at Shalford - 'Timber' Wood running criminal

1964 at Shalford – ‘Timber’ Wood running criminal

So ended The Winter, what I wasn’t to realize was that in 3 years both my Tutors were to leave Surrey, Bob Ling resigned in 1965 and George Wraight transferred to Bucks, later to be Thames Valley and the Dog School to my amazement was handed to me.

The sign that marked the Police Kennels at Mountbrowne

The sign that marked the Police Kennels at Mountbrowne

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The biggest cases of Scotland’s smallest police force

  By surreywebmaster | 02/04/2013 - 10:48 | Policing - History, Scotland
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Lockerbie bombingThe Lockerbie bombing was one of the biggest criminal investigations ever undertaken in the UK

Sixty-five years used to be the default retirement age…

And, while it may not be exactly voluntary, that was the point in time when Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary ceased to exist.

Scotland’s smallest force – by officer numbers – has now merged with the country’s seven others.

It brings to an end a chapter in the story of policing in south west Scotland – a story which has been recounted in a commemorative book to mark the force’s most memorable moments.

Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary was formed on 16 February 1948 out of another merger – this time of the constabularies of Dumfriesshire, Wigtownshire and the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright.

That makes it the oldest of the eight forces being amalgamated on 1 April this year.

In its lifetime, it has seen its officers take the lead in numerous major cases – but one towers above them all.

Some 270 people – from 21 different countries – died when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie just before Christmas in 1988.

It resulted in the largest criminal investigation ever undertaken in the UK, which was led by Dumfries and Galloway’s Chief Constable of the time, John Boyd.

With the assistance of other forces, Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was eventually convicted of the bombing at a special court in the Netherlands.

He died last year after being released from jail on compassionate grounds, but the investigation into the atrocity remains “live”.

Officers from Dumfries and Galloway visited Libya earlier this year to continue their inquiries.

Another investigation which captured headlines worldwide was the theft of a Leonardo da Vinci painting, the Madonna of the Yarnwinder, from the Duke of Buccleuch’s Drumlanrig Castle in 2003.

In the audacious art heist, raiders made off with the multi-million pound painting late one August morning.

Nobody has ever been charged with the theft, but the valuable piece was recovered in 2007.

Madonna of the Yarnwinder

Nobody has ever been charged with the theft of the Madonna of the Yarnwinder

Five men were accused of conspiring to extort £4.25m ($6.5m) for its safe return – but they were all cleared in court.

Going back further into the force’s history, the Little Ross lighthouse murder provided another of its most famous cases.

In August 1960, two relief lighthouse keepers were on duty on the little island off the coast of Kirkcudbright.

The secretary of the local RNLI arrived on the island with his son and discovered the body of one of the keepers, Hugh Clark, in the lighthouse.

A nationwide hunt eventually traced the other man on duty, Robert Dickson, in Yorkshire.

He was tried and found guilty of murder in Dumfries, and was sentenced to hang.

That was later commuted to life imprisonment, although Dickson subsequently took his own life while in jail.

Another notable murder was the case of Archibald Hall, dubbed “The Monster Butler”.

Archibald Hall

Archibald Hall, dubbed “The Monster Butler”, was jailed for life for four murders

He began working for Peggy Hudson as a butler at Kirtleton House in Dumfriesshire in 1975.

Hall had previously been in prison and two years later a fellow inmate, David Wright, got a job as gamekeeper on the same estate.

A row between the two resulted in the butler shooting and killing the other man and burying him in the estate grounds.

Hall quit his job and moved to London, working for Walter and Dorothy Scott-Elliot.

He hatched a plan with an accomplice, Michael Kitto, to rob his employers, but was overheard by Mrs Scott-Elliot.

They suffocated the woman with a pillow and her husband was drugged, taken to Scotland, beaten and buried in woods in the Highlands.

During that journey they were accompanied by the housekeeper Mary Coggle, who started to wear Mrs Scott-Elliot’s expensive clothes and jewellery.

Fearing this might draw attention, Hall and Kitto killed her too, and left her body in a stream near Middlebie in Dumfries and Galloway.

Her body was discovered on Christmas Day 1977 by a shepherd.

Marion Hodge posterA fresh appeal in 2006 tried to find more information about Marion Hodge’s disappearance in 1984

An investigation was launched but, in the meantime, the pair also killed Hall’s half-brother, Donald, in Cumbria.

They were eventually caught in East Lothian and Hall was convicted of four of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. Kitto was also jailed for life.

Seven years later there emerged a case which still remains unsolved.

Lockerbie woman Marion Hodge was last seen on the Whitesands in Dumfries in 1984.

Repeated appeals failed to trace her and she was pronounced officially dead at the Court of Session in 1992.

A fresh appeal was launched in 2006, when her disappearance was the last unsolved case on Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary’s books.

However, it failed to find an answer to what happened to her more than 20 years before.

Flipping through the force’s history, the breadth and scale of the incidents it has had to deal with is apparent.

A bank siege in Stranraer, a car plunging into the River Dee, a coach crash at Beattock in which 10 people died and an officer – Sgt William Gibson – being shot dead while on duty in Bank Street in Dumfries are among the stories which jump off the page.

Thankfully, such dramatic and sometimes tragic events are few and far between.

The region’s last chief constable, Pat Shearer, has highlighted the low crime levels and high detection rates, as well as the “dedication and devotion of the policing team”.

Everyone in Dumfries and Galloway will hope that this continues under the new structure.

Leading role – the chief constables of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary

Patrick Shearer

  • 1948-1965 – Sydney Arthur Berry
  • 1965-1984 – Alexander Campbell
  • 1984-1989 – John Boyd
  • 1989-1994 – George Esson
  • 1994-1996 – Roy Cameron
  • 1996-2001 – William Rae
  • 2001-2007 – David Strang
  • 2007-2013 – Patrick Shearer (pictured)

The biggest cases of Scotland’s smallest police force

See: Scotland’s new unified police force replaces eight regional constabularies

And: Police Scotland: Dawn Of A Force

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Jimmy Savile: police inspector ‘may have acted on star’s behalf’

  By surreywebmaster | 21/02/2013 - 09:52 | In The News, Policing - History, Policing - Surrey
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Police watchdog working to expose ‘catalogue of institutional failings’ that left TV personality free to attack hundreds
Jimmy Savile

Jimmy Savile, who died in 2011, is thought to have commited 200 offences over several decades.

The police watchdog has began examining the police’s dealings with Jimmy Savile, as it promises to help expose “a catalogue of institutional failings” that left the TV star free to molest hundreds of people.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said an investigation had begun into a police inspector from the West Yorkshire force who may have “acted on behalf” of Savile ahead of an interview by detectives from the Surrey force.

The IPCC is also asking a total of seven forces to examine their files to see if there are any concerns about the way their officers dealt with Savile and related matters.

The Guardian understands this is in part triggered by material passed to the IPCC by an inquiry already under way into police dealings with Savile. That inquiry is being conducted by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, and was ordered by the home secretary.

Savile attacked hundreds of people, including children, across several decades of sexual offending. Police say re-investigation has led them to record over 200 offences.

Failings by police and prosecutors meant the one chance to bring Jimmy Savile to justice while he was alive was lost, the director of public prosecution has admitted.

Official reports already released revealed that police across the country – including the Metropolitan police, Surrey, Sussex and Savile’s home force, West Yorkshire – failed to share information, in some cases failed to record allegations against him and in other cases even warned victims off.

When Savile was finally interviewed by detectives in 2009, the encounter was “perfunctory” and he was allowed to control the proceedings, a review by Surrey police found.

Ahead of that 2009 interview, a former inspector from the West Yorkshire police contacted the Surrey force. According to a report from Surrey police, the inspector said he was known to Savile; said the entertainer had lost a number for the detectives who wanted to interview him; and passed on a number where Savile could be reached.

According to the Surrey report, when interviewed by their detectives, Savile said he knew senior police officers from Leeds, named one inspector, and said that officers had been to his home socially to have tea.

The IPCC said it will investigate the former West Yorkshire police inspector’s relationship and dealings with Savile.

In a statement the IPCC said: “The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has received a referral from West Yorkshire police in relation to the alleged actions of a former police inspector. The allegations refer to the officer having ‘acted on behalf’ of the late Jimmy Savile by contacting Surrey police ahead of a police interview in 2009.

“The referral follows a direction from the IPCC to record and refer the conduct of the former inspector, identified in a Surrey police report as ‘Inspector 5′.”

The IPCC added that it had asked seven forces to start inquiries to examine if police misconduct had helped Savile escape justice. The IPCC said: “These forces are West Yorkshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley, Greater Manchester, the Metropolitan and Lancashire police forces. They have been asked to re-look at all information relating to the late Jimmy Savile. The IPCC has asked that each force provides the relevant documents and, if they decide not to record or refer any matters, the rationale for not doing so.”

IPCC commissioner Rachel Cerfontyne said: “Having had the opportunity to assess all the information that is available to us, I directed West Yorkshire police to record and refer the conduct of a former inspector.

“Furthermore I believe all the forces that may have had intelligence concerning the late Jimmy Savile should now go back and consider all the relevant information and materials they possess that may highlight any recordable conduct issues for the IPCC to assess.

“A number of bodies are already working to address the deep-rooted public concern in this case and have published reports. It is now for the IPCC to assess thoroughly whether or not there are matters in relation to the conduct of individual officers that require an IPCC investigation. This may be of little comfort to victims of crime, but I hope that the IPCC can play some part in addressing what many see as a catalogue of institutional failings.”

Jimmy Savile: police inspector ‘may have acted on star’s behalf’

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Hillsborough’s Trevor Hicks meets ‘hero’ police officer

  By surreywebmaster | 18/02/2013 - 10:05 | In The News, Policing - History
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The reunion between two men whose lives were changed by the Hillsborough tragedy (video here)

A father who lost his two daughters in the Hillsborough disaster has been reunited with the policeman who tried to help them on the day of the tragedy.

Trevor Hicks’s daughters Sarah, 19, and Victoria, 15, were among the 96 who died as a result of the 1989 disaster.

Mr Hicks’s last meeting with Peter McGuiness was when he was working as a young constable on the day of the tragedy and tried to save Victoria.

It was down to the policeman to break the news of her death to Mr Hicks.

Mr Hicks said: “What he did was awful for him, but I see it as being a hero for me and that is something I need to say publicly.”

Something wrong

Sarah and Victoria went with their father to the Leppings Lane end of Sheffield Wednesday’s stadium for the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on 15 April.

However, they became separated.

“We’ve crossed a personal divide”

Trevor Hicks

Meanwhile Mr McGuiness had been drafted in to police the match and was working one of his final shifts as a uniformed officer before joining CID.

He said as the game got under way it soon became apparent something was wrong.

As fans began to get crushed in the two pens, Mr McGuiness pulled Victoria on to the pitch.

Medics worked on Sarah alongside them while the officer and Mr Hicks tried to revive Victoria.

She was taken in an ambulance to the Northern General Hospital with Mr McGuiness and her father still trying to resuscitate her.

At the hospital, the officer stayed with Victoria while doctors tried to save her.

Mr Hicks's daughters Sarah and Victoria

Mr Hicks’s daughters became seperated from their father when they were inside the stadium

Mr McGuiness said: “Unfortunately at some point they stopped and said she’d gone and I was faced with the sad job of informing Trevor.”

That was the last time the two men saw each other.

During the intervening years, Mr Hicks has been at the forefront of a campaign to get justice for the families of the Liverpool fans.

As chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, he has always blamed policing failures on the day for the deaths.

The group campaigned for the release of all relevant documents, which led to the formation of the Hillsborough Independent Panel.

‘Moral dilemma’

Last September a report by the panel found some of the dead might have been saved and said police had changed witness statements and tried to blame Liverpool fans.

In December, the High Court quashed the original inquest verdicts of accidental death and ordered new inquests to be held.

Despite the bitter divide between victims’ families and police, Mr Hicks has always been grateful for Mr McGuiness’s efforts to help save his family.
Tributes at the Hillsborough Memorial at Anfield

A private prosecution was brought by the Hillsborough Families Support Group

The only contact between the two men over the years was a letter written by Mr Hicks in 1989 commending the officer’s actions on the day.

Addressed to the then South Yorkshire Police chief constable Peter Wright, it said: “For some time I have wrestled with the moral dilemma of wishing to commend one of your constables and yet find it extremely difficult to write to yourself for reasons of which you aware.

“I wish to commend the actions of Pc 1926 (Peter John McGuiness)…

“It is my belief that the officer, under extremely harrowing conditions, did all he could to assist the attempt to save Victoria, and did so in a professional and caring way.”

Now they have been reunited to enable Mr Hicks to thank him in person.

Speaking after their meeting, which took place in Sheffield’s Hillsborough memorial park, Mr Hicks said: “We’ve crossed a personal divide.

“I didn’t see this as the two sides, South Yorkshire Police versus the families.

“I see this as me the individual saying thank you to another individual who happened to be a young police officer on the day for what he did to help.”

‘Stiff handshake’

Mr McGuiness said: “My instinct was to give him a hug as I did all those years back in the hospital when I told him the terrible news.

“But somehow the hug became a stiff handshake.”

He added: “After 30 years you sort of think you’re hardened to various aspects of life and death.

“Getting back to the human interaction with Trevor it’s been a reminder of what’s this all about.

“This was about Victoria, his daughter Sarah and all the other victims. In amongst that there’s such a tragic story.”

Both men, who embraced when they parted, said they planned to meet again in the future.

See more on this on Inside Out on Monday 18 February on BBC1 at 19:30 GMT.

Hillsborough’s Trevor Hicks meets ‘hero’ police officer

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Does anyone know the origins of the term ‘blues and twos?

  By surreywebmaster | 06/02/2013 - 09:52 | Policing - History
2 Comments

Feb OB Blues & Twos

blues and twos noun earlier than 1985

Blues and twos is a colloquial British phrase referring to the blue flashing lights and two-tone siren of a police car or other emergency vehicle which is responding to some incident (although the lights are no longer necessarily blue, nor the siren necessarily two-tone). By extension, the term is now sometimes used to refer to the emergency services themselves.

The term was apparently popularized by the ITV (Carlton) television series of the same name, which first aired in 1993. However, its history goes back further than that; the earliest evidence that OED editors have been able to find so far is a 1985 quotation from the Times:

1985 Times 19 Nov. 14/7 They..came in with blues and twos going crazy.

But it doesn’t seem plausible that a colloquial term like this was first used in the Times—it’s likely that police officers were using blues and twos long before it made its way into the British national press.

Given this, can you help us find earlier evidence for blues and twos? Perhaps an ex-police officer knows of a pre-1985 log book containing the phrase, or of an internal memo or report in which it’s used.

Click here to take you to the OED website if you know the answer, (but let us know also).

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